Silhouette Art

On a trip to Disneyland, I stopped by a gallery store in Downtown Disney. There I saw lots of fine art interpretations on Disney characters. One in particular featured the Lion King, and I swear it was similar to these, but when I returned home and searched for it, I couldn’t find it. So I thought I would try and create my own take on the idea—negative space silhouettes of the characters I love from books and movies. It’s kind of snowballed. I hope you enjoy these.

My first non-character-based drawing! This one is for/of my son. He loves to read!

Last year I went to the Let Them Eat Art festival in Maplewood, MO. It was my first art festival (I know, weird, right?) and I fell in love. They have artists recreate a piece of art the night of the festival and after talking to some other artists I knew I wanted to do it. This is my submission. . . wish me luck!

Continuing with the new white on black test, I decided to make a Halloween drawing. I’ve always loved Nightmare Before Christmas! This one was a lot of fun.

The Sea Witch. My first experiment in doing these in reverse. The scan of this one doesn’t do it justice.

Another character based on the book and plays more than the Disney movie. I had fun doing this one. Again it has a landscape element in the background and I think I like the look of the open characters over what I did in the Princess Bride.

While Alice is my favorite book, the Princess Bride is my favorite movie. In addition to the “hidden” pieces in this drawing the background also builds a landscape. What can I say, I love true love.

My second in this series was based on a pumpkin carving I did a few years ago. Pumpkin carving is nothing but negative space creation, I’ve even used it to teach Gestalt to my graphic design students. Anyway, the roses and vines lent themselves perfectly to this piece. It is very possible this is my favorite of all the pieces.

This was my first drawing in this series. Alice in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass) has always been one of my favorite books, so Alice was the obvious first choice for me.* As I was working on it I also got the idea for incorporating other images from the books into the drawing—a tradition that has continued through most of this series.
*I’d like to note that this is based on the John Tenniel illustrations from the original books, not the Disney version.

Anne of Green Gables. . . I know very little about these stories. I created this one for someone I love using her favorite flowers and one of her favorite characters.

I am not a mamma’s boy, but when my mother became interested in these drawings my need to win her approval jumped in. She wanted this for her friends birthday. It is not my favorite piece, but I’m proud of it.